FIRS issues public notice on revised interest rate for unpaid taxes

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has issued a public notice announcing the approved penalty and interest rates to be applied as sanctions on all unpaid tax amounts.

You would recall that the Minister of Finance recently directed FIRS to implement a 5% spread on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) for 2017 as the interest rate charged for tax payments not made within the statutory timeframe. Please refer to our Tax Alert for more information.

Following from this, effective 1 July 2017, the applicable rate of interest on unpaid taxes will now be 19% (i.e., CBN MPR of 14% plus 5% spread) of the tax payable and no longer 15%. The applicable rate for penalty on unpaid taxes remains 10% of tax payable.

We advise taxpayers to take note of the public notice and promptly evaluate potential tax exposure with the aim of closing any identified compliance gap(s) before the above implementation date. We are available to assist in this regard.